Famous People Who Stutter

I hadn't planned on doing such a simple entry like this one, but I think this has a lot of value, so I am including it. The above picture is just a few of the many people who stutter. I spent some time on the website http://www.stutteringhelp.org/ and one of the first links I clicked on was the link about famous people who stutter.

As a society, we are obsessed with famous people and while I am not as enthusiastic about this topic as some are, I do enjoy learning about famous people. I was astonished with the list of people that they had that stutter(ed). If you go to the website and click on the famous people link, it gives you a good pamphlet that you can save and print that includes some famous people. The above picture is part of this pamphlet. Interestingly, one of the people on the list, Alan Rabinowitz was part of a video about stuttering that I had watched already (not for this class).

I knew about some of the people, like James Earl Jones, John Stossel, Marilyn Monroe and Winston Churchill, but there were some that surprised me. To name a few, Tiger Woods, Kenyon Martin, Bo Jackson, John Melendez (voice of the Tonight Show), Jimmy Stewart, Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts, Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs host and Ford promoter), B.B. King, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Col. Joshua Chamberlain (the unsung hero of Gettysburg, it could be argued that he alone provided the win for the Union. The movie "Gettysburg" provides insight into his character and Jeff Daniels plays him extraordinarily well), King George VI, even Moses (purportedly) and Demosthenes (greatest Greek orator of ancient times).

That list blew me away. And I know that there are probably plenty more that just aren't on the list for whatever reason. I love seeing this many famous and successful people on a list of people who stutter. It can give hope and promise to the estimated three million people in the U.S. that stutter. It doesn't need to be overcome for a person to be successful. Also, it makes me think about all of those people. I am sure they had people throughout their lives tell them that they would never make it and look where they are now!